DSS Accuses APC of Hacking Into INEC’s Database

 Deputy Director, Public Relations of DSS, Marilyn Ogar

   •We have been vindicated, says •PDP   APC describes findings as hogwash

The Department of State Security (DSS) on Wednesday said the All Progressives Congress (APC) was planning to hack into the database of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The Deputy Director, Public Relations of DSS, Marilyn Ogar, who said this in Abuja at a news conference, explained that items retrieved from the APC data centre on November 20, 2014 showed that the party had plans to clone the INEC Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) .

She said all the people arrested during the raid had been charged to court and are currently on bail.

Ogar stated that in the course of investigation, the service recovered a temporary voters card; a PVC, adding that one of the hard drives recovered from the building contained a video of 21 hacking tutorials.

She explained that the video focused on how to become a hacker and steps to take to avoid detection in the process of hacking web servers; steps and procedures of system hacking, passwords cracking, decrypting, escalating access privileges, and creating backdoors to servers.

She further explained that the video also explicitly explained how to evade security of databases such as Intrusion Detection Systems, firewalls, and other measures put in place to deter hackers.

Ogar said: “The  video outlined ways to identify vulnerabilities in systems and how to surreptitiously drop a USB flash drive in a target establishment, which when plugged into any computer, transmits malicious codes enough to gain access into and compromise the entire system of the target organisation.

“Finally, the video explains how to hack into the systems of media houses, with the aim of broadcasting fake stories or headlines.

“From the foregoing, we suspect that there was an elaborate and well articulated plan to inflate the party’s membership data as well as hack into INEC’s voter registration database through the creation of party membership forms and cards to match INEC’s voters register across the country.”

The service also said it discovered that the APC registered under-aged persons including several infants and babies as members of the party contrary to Article 9.1 of the APC constitution.

Similarly, she said the APC registered several security personnel from the Nigerian Army,  the Nigeria Police Force,  Nigeria Customs Service, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, Federal Road Safety Commission, among others, in their uniforms as members of the party.

According to her, a DSS operative whose picture was found in the APC database, but with a wrong name, is being investigated and would be sanctioned if he was found to have given voluntarily registered with the party.

The DSS stated that it had written letters to the different security agencies whose members were registered as APC members to determine their level of involvement with the party, stressing that security personnel were not supposed to be card carrying members of any political party.

“Furthermore, the APC had multiple registrations of individuals in multiples of 16, 12, and 10; Several foreigners were also registered as its members,” Ogar stated.
The DSS spokesperson also said equally discovered were several envelopes containing passport photographs of various individuals.

Ogar narrated that the service raided the APC office based on actionable intelligence it received that a building was being used for cloning of INEC Permanent Voters Card  by some unscrupulous persons with intent to hack into INEC database, corrupt it and replace same with their own data.

Upon receiving the said report, Ogar stated that the service immediately took appropriate steps to investigate same by first seeking and obtaining a search warrant as required by law, insisting that the DSS operatives found that the building did not have the signpost, banner or flag of any company or political party.

In a swift response, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said it had been vindicated by the shocking findings made by the DSS.

The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, in a statement, said Nigerians and the international community can now see  that the ruling party was not crying wolf when it earlier raised an alarm that the APC was cloning INEC’s PVCs and utilising technologies to hack into the commission’s data base.

“When we alerted Nigerians that the APC is on a sinister mission against  this country some people dismissed us as crying wolf and playing to the  gallery. Now that they have been exposed, the world can see that the APC is indeed a party of criminals in desperate quest for power.

“Everyone now knows on what strength a party which lacks genuine  followership among the people has been boasting that it will emerge  victorious in the elections with threats of violence if it loses.

But the APC has dismissed as hogwash the so-called findings of the DSS, saying the ‘findings’ was a great disservice to Nigeria and an embarrassment to all intelligence-gathering organisations around the world.

In a statement issued  by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party also described the timing of the release of the ‘findings’ as a plot orchestrated in collusion with the PDP to distract the APC from its ongoing campaigns for next month’s elections.

It described as disingenuous, flimsy, premeditated, partisan and an irritant the conclusion that the APC had an ‘’articulated plan to inflate the party’s membership data as well as hack into INEC’s voter registration database through the creation of party membership forms and cards to match INEC’s voters register across the country’.

‘’First the DSS and the PDP said the APC was cloning PVCs at the raided office, without a shred of evidence. Now, after a ‘painstaking’ investigation, the DSS has found out that the APC was only planning to inflate its membership data and then hack into INEC’s database. And this is the outcome of its massive, months-long investigations?

‘’This would have been funny if it were not from a primary domestic intelligence agency saddled with a great responsibility. Can this wishy-washy report stand any serious scrutiny? Can any serious intelligence-gathering agency anywhere else in the world take this report seriously?

“With these kind of findings, one can now understand why Boko Haram has continued to strike at times and places of its own choosing without any prior knowledge by our all-powerful DSS.

‘’Even the presentation of the report by a poorly-trained and highly-politicized spokesperson of the DSS worsened the so-called findings. Why would the spokesperson of a national agency sound like a megaphone for the ruling party, freely castigating the opposition spokesman and ‘’a number of uninformed members of the public’’? Why does she have to go personal in presenting a report that supposedly is in the national interest?



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